A knock at the door sent the blood to her heart, and her hand to her dusty hair, before she remembered how impossible it was that this should be any but an unimportant knock. Yet she opened the door with a thrill—it seemed that such a day could have no trivial incidents. When she saw that it was the housemaid with the mail, the Indian mail, she took it with a little smile of indifference and satisfaction. It was no longer the master of her delight. She put it all aside while she adjusted the folds of the curtains and took the step-ladder out of the room. Then she read Philip Doyle’s letter. She read it, and when she had finished she looked gravely, coldly, at the packet that came with it, carefully addressed in the round accurate hand of the clerk who made quill pens in Doyle’s office. She was conscious of an unkindness in this chance; it might so well have fallen last week or next. There was no ignoring it—it was there, it had been delivered to her, it seemed almost as urgent a demand upon her time and thought and interest as if John Church himself had put it into her hand. With an involuntary movement she pushed the packet aside and looked round the room. There were still several little things to do. She got up to go about them; but she moved slowly, and the glow had gone out of her face, leaving her eyes shadowed as they were on other days. She made the cornbottles and the daisies up into little bouquets, but she let her hands drop into her lap more than once, and thought about other things. Suddenly, with a quick movement, she went over to where the packet lay and took it up. It was as if she turned her back upon something; she had a resolute look. As she broke the wax and cut the strings, any one might have recognised that she confronted herself with a duty which she did not mean to postpone. It would have been easy to guess her unworded feeling—that, however differently her heart might insist, she could not slight John Church. This was a sensitive and a just woman. She opened letter after letter, reading slowly and carefully. Every word had its due, every sentence spoke to her. Gradually there came round her lips the look they wore when she knelt upon her hassock in St. Luke’s round the corner, and repeated, with bent head, /* “But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders: Spare Thou them, O Lord, which confess their faults.” */